Cafés run on the afternoon.

Coffee shops have the opposite problem to restaurants: their surplus arrives in the middle of the day.

A café’s risk is not the last hour. It is the long flat stretch after lunch, when the pastry bought for the morning is still in the case and the room is half empty.

That makes cafés the most natural happy hour users on the platform. A two-hour window at three in the afternoon fills a gap that no amount of evening demand can reach.

For a café, the discount is not clearing stock. It is buying footfall in the hour footfall does not arrive.

It also produces the most predictable drops on Forsa. Restaurant surplus is a nightly surprise; a café’s quiet afternoon is a standing appointment.

cafés afternoon lull pastry happy hours footfall

Written by the Forsa team, Amman. Read next